My attempt at creating a social network based around product and service building. SpecLabX is a platform for people interested in and currently building products to network, collaborate, and get feedback on products ad services.
Here are some of the things I displayed during the project :
Operating
My way of operating, organization, planning, and executing is shown throughout the whole project.
Web Design
I show throughout this process how I designed the website and implemented social software to let users make accounts and interact.
Marketing and User Learning
I display what worked, what didn't, and the techniques I used during this project. I also write about what I learned through my mistakes.
Operations
Throughout this project operations was definitely one of the main skills I wanted to prove that I had. Essentially display the ability to get stuff done efficiently, and in a way that betters other aspects of the project and platform. Some of the software and tools I use during this project that helped with the way things ran include but are not limited to: Trello, WordPress, notes, physical notes, and iMovie. Below I provide videos showing how I used some of these tool and how they apply to this project.
*I do use WordPress and Elementor for various operations based subjects but I cover those all under the Web Design section of this project*
Web Design
Web Design is one of the main skills I portray in this project and was a vital peice to its completion. I had challenges like having the hosting not working, the website crashing, and other miscellaneous roadbumps that caused me to stop along the way. In the following video I show the plugins I used, the templates I inserted, software I implemented, wordpress operations, and more. I also get into what worked for people and what they liked. The following video provide more detail on how I did some of these things.
Marketing/ User Growth and Other Learnings
Marketing/User Growth – Marketing for a project like this was definitely an unexpected hardship. I did not end up buying facebook or instagram ads because I figured networking, using social media, and joining facebooks groups would be much better ways to advertise and get users. I posted on almost every social media platform I have and more groups. This included facebook, linkedIn, LinkedIn DMing, instagram DMing, workplace, Vero, next Gen summit group (network), and more. These did not have much effect on user growth at all. The main cause for user growth was messaging and reaching out to people I already know to see if they wanted to sign up, give me feedback, and if it would provide them value. Starting to utilize your network when you go out on a venture is dramatically undervalued because you close network of people are willing to support you the most and find other connections that could help you. Overall, I reached hundreds if not in the thousands of people through all my social media and cold DMing but only converted roughly 16 people to users. In the future, if I had more projects like this or decide to grow the platform I definitely would like to utilize relationships and my own network more in order to gain new users and still potentially try ads on facebook or instagram . I have also learned another meaning behind why people say “sales are about relationships”.
Other Learnings – First off, cold DMing on LinkedIn and Instagram does not very effectively (at least not for a social platform). I learned that you have to start with a small community first and slowly scale by other people’s connections and who they know could derive value from the community/ platform. Also, a newer idea to me to promote activity and enthusiasm on a new platform is tocreate a point system or leader board which makes people want to be mkre active and in the know on your site. Plus, another learning oppurtunity was that you can have a create system and physical platform/set-up, but unless the idea behind everything is solid and super benefical to a mass of people, then you will have slow to no growth. Another thing I learned is to always go with the the better hosting. Because I used HostGator instead of BlueHost, I had lots of issues with the hosting. Things like the website was down at random times, or I couldn’t access the portal to edit the site for a day or two, etc, were very annoying and disruptive. I also (by mistake) had the website crash and essentially had to rebuild it which was another big struggle. But from this struggle a few very important lessons emerge: Don’t forget to make a duplicate of your website and save an earlier version. With this lessons in hand earlier in the project I may have saved myself quite a bit of time but I got over the challenge just by grinding out the parts of the website that were gone until they were finished. And lastly, I learned more about website development and how to make websites in more efficient time. Everytime I make a website it seems like I learn more tips and tricks about how to make things faster, implement new tools, and make things look better.